Hey guys(and gals), hope all of my United States associates had a lovely Thanksgiving holiday. Kind of feel sorry that the rest of the world cannot experience this holiday but alas I guess there is nothing we can do about it. Went ahead and spent my Thanksgiving Holiday with my family down in Amarillo, Texas. For the most part I enjoyed my time down there. Was able to catch up with everybody and managed to get a decent chunk of gaming in.

Given that I was going to have a fair share of free time on the trip, I decided to use the opportunity to catch up on some of my backlog. Although I have been trying my best to plow through my backlog as of late, I have pretty much been ignoring the slew of titles I have acclimated for the PSP. Putting my DS and iPod Touch aside I decided to give Ys Seven a whirl.

Despite being an advent fan of Japanese Role-Playing Games, I have really never tried out the Ys series before. Taking into consideration that I really only got into gaming during the Playstation-N64 era I guess this is not to surprising as there has only been one other numbered Ys title released since the SNES days. Despite a horribly generic story I was pleasantly surprised by the game.

While the combat can be a bit button mashy it throws in a rock-paper-scissors combat into play to spice things up a bit. Instead of letting you get cozy with a single character, the game forces you to switch around a bit by making certain classes weaker against particular enemies. In addition the synthesis system in the game is really fleshed out. It actually gives you a reason to grind it out a bit in the wilderness, which is a problem I have with a lot of JRPGs...

As I said above though the story can get terribly bland and generic. The story focuses on the main protagonist of the Ys series Adol the Red and his adventuring companion Dogi as they cross the country of Afroca in search of the five sacred dragons. While the basic plot-line isn't too bad, the dialogue and characters are a different story. Even though I have sucken 6+ hours into the game, I really do not feel anything towards any of the characters at all. While Ys Seven is certainly fun especially for only $20, I would recommend some other series like Star Ocean for those wanting a good JRPG as story is not the front and center of this game (at least for me).

As I was leaving Amarillo this morning for back home I stopped by Gamestop and picked up Sonic Generation and Rayman Origins. Did my research before hand and saw that both games were marked down $20 and decided to jump on the deal. Although I have yet to touch Rayman Origins (though from what I've played of the demo it seems pretty fun) I did manage to spend a couple of hours with Sonic Generation today.

Now my history with Sonic is probably a bit different from others. Since I never owned a Sega console, I never really got to play the classic Sonic games until a couple of years ago. Instead I found myself pouring a lot of time into Sonic Adventure 2 Battle for the Gamecube. Now while 3D Sonic games do tend to get a bad rap, especially in our circle, I personally enjoyed the hell out of that game. Have even gone back and played it in recent memory and find it still holds. Where as I find the classic Sonic's games to be a bit dull in a sense.

With that in mind when I first picked up Sonic Generations I was not exactly digging it. In addition to the horrible voice acting (seriously feel like Sonic Adventure 2 had better voice acting...) and pathetic story I had some gameplay issues as well. For one I felt like the camera presented in the classic Sonic levels was way to close for confort and I felt like it interfered with my pleasure of those levels. Secondly I felt the challenges attached to each stage were more than a little tacked on. While I way enjoying the 3D levels just fine I was afraid that my hesitation over the classic Sonic levels would ruin the game for me. Took a break from the game for a bit and revisited it later on this evening and was feeling a bit better about the game. Still a bit iffy about the challenges attached to each level but I am a bit less worried about the rest of the game now that I've blasted through the second set of levels. Though Sega totally ruined the Escape from the City song for Sonic Adventure 2...

With the Holiday Season in full gear it seems like more and more high profile releases are coming out each week. It's really hard to believe that Skyrim is less than a week away. What's more Assassin's Creed: Revelations, Modern Warfare 3, and even Rayman Origin are following suit in the next couple of weeks as well. While this has been a blest time for gaming I'm afraid I've been missing out on the Holiday fun as of late. To be perfectly honest the last retail game I really picked was Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

I suppose this can be attributed to a number of different reason. For one I've been busy as hell recently. While class work has been the main cause of this busyness, my job at the theater has been eating up my free time as well. What's more I just found out this week that I'll be having to juggle a second job as well. Thankfully this pays a bit more than my theater job which is always a plus. Cannot really say much more about it as it's a government job but for the most part the gig sounds pretty sweet. Debating whether I should lock off my Twitter account though before they scan me. Not that I post anything questionable on there but I would prefer to play it safe rather than sorry.

Another reason for this delay in holiday gaming fun is my cheapassity. Instead of being a good gamer and paying full price for a game like Dark Souls, I've decided to take the low road and wait it out till the price drops. However after having to put up with all of the Twitter talk about Dark Souls my patience for that game is beginning to run thin. More so considering it's been out for over a month and I haven't seen a sale for it yet. The other night I was almost tempted to buy it after listening to the latest episode of Teabag Radio. Side Note: If you're looking for a good podcast to listen to, give these guys a shot. They will really make you laugh your ass off at times. Back on topic though...

However as punishing as it is to myself, my cheapassity has allowed me to tackle my backlog a bit more. Since my last post I've managed to finish up Professor Layton and the Curious Village. While I was not totally blown away by it, I still had quite a bit of fun with it and will probably be picking up the later installments of the series next time I see them on sale or before going on the trip. Feel like I ruined the game for myself by using the guide to much though. While I was able to solve a hearty portion of the puzzles I felt like I cheated way to much on many of the puzzles by using a guide. For some reason I had a sense of OCD about the puzzles and could not simply put them down and move on. Hopefully next time I play a Professor Layton game I'll be able to constrain myself and only tackle the puzzles I can actually do.

After finishing up Professor Layton I decided to pick up Demon's Souls yet again. However I found I was a bit rusty with the game after not having played the game for months. Needless to say I probably made a couple of mistakes I shouldn't have. That said I was able to adapt to the game rather quickly and made a bit of progress with the game. Kind of hoping I finish up Demon's Souls before Dark Souls goes on sale though. Don't know if I'll be able to continue on with the game once I have Dark Souls in my hands.

Haven't been playing a lot else besides some Peggle on the bus though. Thinking about opening up Ys Seven and giving that game a shot. Have never played the series before but hopefully I'll have some fun with the game. If anybodies played the game I'm curious to how you fancied it. Anyhow...